In this section we provide advice and guidance on some of the practicalities behind making markets successful, and these are meant for both market managers and stallholders, with the overall aim of making the visit to market by shoppers a pleasant and good-value experience, which they will share with others and keep coming back throughout the year.

We have grouped the information into two areas, firstly, things around customers’ and secondly, things you can do in terms of marketing and promotion.

• There is a comprehensive document on Attracting customers to your market, which is based upon our own lessons from the last three years of consumer research at our markets in Kent, and we have cross-referenced this with the experiences of other markets throughout the country to come up with ideas for attracting customers to markets, some of which you may already do, but there may also be some opportunities for you to think about, when running the market

• We have also documented a brief summary of what stops customers from coming to markets which can also be used to help cross-check how your market or stallholder influences shopper behaviour and perhaps gives you ideas for improvements.

• Holding events are a popular way to help increasing your footfall at markets and we have a leaflet on ideas for these, along with a Calendar showing a whole series of national ‘days’ which you may want to have a go at creating your local version of.